


Thorns

by VictoriaSkyeMarsters



Category: Hannibal (TV), The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
Genre: Hannibal is a priest, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, No Underage Sex, Priest Kink, Slow Burn, Will lives on a sheep farm, thorn birds AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6532150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaSkyeMarsters/pseuds/VictoriaSkyeMarsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is a young boy living on a sheep farm in Australia. Father Hannibal has been sent there as punishment for angering the bishop. Then they meet, and it's The Thorn Birds, Hannibal edition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

William was a young boy, only five years old, when his family moved from New Zealand to Australia. The opportunity there was vast, his mother told him while he balanced on her knee, and the Graham business of sheep farming would flourish in its golden landscape. His mother’s eyes had been as bright and blue as his own when she had whispered the news in his ear, but William had not been keen on the idea of moving. He loved New Zealand, as much as a five year old lad could love anything. The lush green fields behind their house, the sweet smelling air after an afternoon rain, the fruit he plucked from the tree in the yard and its juices that dripped over his lips and down his chin. He smiled at his mother when she told him the news, but to William, it had tasted sour in his mouth. 

Australia, he knew, even at five, would never be a home to him.

Within the next month, the Grahams had made their move, and William’s prophecy of disillusionment had been swiftly fulfilled on his very first day at his new school. He was a strange boy, uniquely pale against the backdrop of suntanned skin that made his schoolmates glow like gold-dipped angels. His hair was so darkly brown it was nearly black, and in the throng of honey blonde wisps, his coloring stood out like an honest-to-god black sheep, his thick hair wild with curls. Within the first hour of his first day, William was summoned to the front of the classroom, the nun leering over him with disapproval etched on her stern brow. 

“Mr. Graham” she scolded, her ruler slapping rhythmically against the palm of her fleshy hands. “Is your mother living?”

William had swallowed nervously, embarrassed to be subjected to such a spotlight. “Yes, Sister Rosamond,” he had squeaked. 

Sister Rosamond, curiously cruel in William’s retrospective memory, had clucked at him with a disapproving tongue. “And does your mother teach you proper manners, Mr. Graham?” she had implored.  
Her voice carried loudly enough for every child to hear, as well as every passerby outside the classroom. “Does she teach you how to groom yourself?”

He had not understood, and so he nodded earnestly and answered with an honest and prim, “Yes, Sister Rosamond.”

A wave of children’s chuckles swept across the room then, and another nun standing aside had hushed them to silence. Leaning over him, her face like a thundercloud, Sister Rosamond was not amused. “Then why, Mr. Graham,” she began, ruler still rapping against her palm with ominous slaps, “have you arrived at this schoolhouse with your hair uncombed?”

Uproarious laughter followed, un-stifled for a painful stretch of time before Sister Rosamond slammed her ruler against the blackboard. It cracked as loud as lightning, and William jumped in his dust-coated shoes, and the children’s boisterous giggles came to an abrupt stop. 

“I asked you a question, Mr. Graham,” she said. “Did your mother think it appropriate to send you off to school with a head as dirty as your feet?”

William was at a loss for words. That morning, as he had chomped on an apple for breakfast, his mother had fiddled about his hair with care, brushing his unruly curls until they yielded soft waves that swept fashionably across his forehead. It would not do to look a mess on his first day, she had said, bending low to kiss his cheek. But then he had walked, and the thick Australian dust whirled about and stung his eyes. The school was several miles off, and though he had taken special care to keep his prowling hands out of his thicket of curls, by the time he reached the school, the wind and heat and dirt had had its way with William. The soft waves his mother had worked so hard to cultivate had bunched back into coils, sticking every which way about his dirt-smudged face, and he was back to looking as he always looked, like a five year old boy. 

That was unacceptable to Sister Rosamond. She fumed above him with stormy eyes throwing daggers beneath the shadow of her habit. “Are you deaf as well as dumb, Mr. Graham?” she asked, and William felt his lip quivering with the risk of tears. The tears of injustice. 

“My mother says I have beautiful hair,” William answered with trembling breath, and the gasp shared around the room was audible. 

“Well,” sighed Sister Rosamond, unimpressed with a mother’s love for a child, “in this classroom, we do not present ourselves to ill-mannered mothers; we present ourselves to Christ the Lord. Do you think our savior would approve of your filthy, disgusting hair, Mr. Graham?”

He furrowed his brow and looked up at the nun, his gaze deep and frightfully knowing for a boy of five. “I think he would love me despite my faults,” he answered, loudly enough for all to hear, though his voice wavered with dread. “Just as he loves you despite your faults, Sister Rosamond.”

Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, she grabbed his arm and bent him forcefully against her desk. William’s breath left him in a quick sigh of surprise, but he did not cry out. And when the nun yanked his trousers down around his thighs and smacked him hard with her ruler, he did not cry out. Three times she spanked him with the flat-edged stick, and three times he bit his lip and denied her his voice. 

Then she pulled up his pants unceremoniously and bid the stricken students to open their bibles. William had limped back to his seat, cringing when his backside met the unforgiving wooden chair. A single tear escaped his astonished eyes, but he opened his bible obediently and hated the nun quietly. 

The next day, William was called to the front of the classroom again. Sister Rosamond’s complaint was the same. “Did your mother comb your hair this morning, Mr. Graham?” she asked, and he nodded, same as the day before. But the nun who had grown villainous in William’s mind had brought herself a second affront to wield. 

“The nature of your hair is uncouth, Mr. Graham,” she announced, reaching into her desk. “If your mother cannot keep it combed, how can you be kept clean?”

William stole a glance at the other nun standing in the corner by the door, and she averted her eyes. When he looked back to Sister Rosamond, she was pulling an object from the desk to show the class. “Have you heard of lice, Mr. Graham?” she asked him. The scissors in her hand, for that was what she had pulled out, were sharp and menacing and they gleamed in the morning light as she tested their cutting blades. 

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I do not have lice,” he said, but he knew it was fruitless. She had already taken a step nearer. 

“But with such unmanageable hair, how can we be sure?” she asked in a falsely sweet voice that burned William’s blood and filled his eyes with angry tears he refused to shed. “I cannot risk an infestation among the other children. It would not be fair when they have all taken such strives towards cleanliness.” She pointed before her. “Come.”

Whispers spread amidst the other students and then fell away, and there was no sound but William’s footsteps as he walked to stand directly before the nun. 

“Bend your head and keep still, lest I cut off one of your ears, as well,” Sister Rosamond crooned venomously. William bent, and when he felt the snip of scissors clipping through his curls, he did not protest, merely kept his eyes pinned to the floorboards. Strand by strand, he watched the dark ribbons of hair float down to rest around his shoes. Before long, the nun was finished, and she smacked the back of his head with her hand. “Cleanliness is next to godliness, Mr. Graham,” she said, “and I will abide nothing less in this classroom. Return to your seat and quit being an insufferable nuisance.” 

That was how William Graham’s first days proceeded at his new school. 

He hated Australia. He had known all along that he would. 

 

Father Hannibal Lecter had no love for the dusty, dry lands to which he had been banished, but then that was the point of punishment. 

And he was surely being punished. 

He had insulted the bishop in London and, consequentially, traded in his comfortable tea times for an unforgiving sun and savage parishioners. It was pathetically typical, he thought to himself as he trotted his horse along the train tracks. Never had he struggled with his vows of celibacy or poverty, but pride…Hannibal’s pride had always been a problem, and on this occasion it had festered in his heart unchecked until it ripped from him in the form of an insult toward the bishop. A foolish move on his behalf, and he deserved the sweat beading on his forehead and dripping down his face to puddle in the hollow of his throat. He deserved the dirt that crept into his priest’s robes every day, despite the pains he took to keep them pristine. Every night after prayers, when he took off the white collar, it was brown with grime, and he scrubbed it in the sink until his hands were raw. 

Yes, he greatly disliked Australia. How could he not, when it was to be his prison of shame for the foreseeable future? Hannibal had heard many a tale of priests making enemies of higher-ups and spending the rest of their days preaching in hovels to hooligans. He looked around him from his saddle and sighed. He had made a mistake, and now he faced his punishment. It would not put into question his faith, however. 

That would not happen until much later. 

 

The Grahams waited at the train station that afternoon with other families of the local church. They were to greet their new priest upon his arrival. William stood in the front of the gathering, small and forgotten as the flock of adults prattled on and on about whom he would be, and what he would look like, and how he would perform his services differently from Father Fralinger, who had passed away that January. 

For three years, the Grahams had lived on their sheep farm in Australia. 

William was eight.

Father Hannibal Lecter was twenty-five, and when he galloped before the flock, stirring up dust, honey blond hair blowing in the hot breeze, he was the most beautiful thing William had ever seen. In truth, he was the most beautiful thing most people had ever seen. It was just his way. The priest slid from the horse’s back with godly grace and moved to stand before his people in greeting. Down the line he walked, smiling a heart-stopping smile and shaking hands, murmuring words of “Hello,” and “How are you?” and “My journey was pleasant. It’s so wonderful to be here,” until he reached the end of the row and saw the small boy staring up at him with huge blue eyes. 

Hannibal was sure he had never seen eyes quite like that before, and without a thought to how it would spoil his robes, he sank to one knee and held out his hand. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Father Hannibal. Who are you?”

William was shocked, not only because no one had yet spoken to him that day (people seldom spoke to him), but because the smiling face of the priest had stolen his breath. Soon, he thought, the man would retract his hand and forget William existed and all would be right in his sad little world once more. But the man did not retract his hand, and he did not look away from William. He remained kneeling before him, patient and kind-eyed, until at last William remembered himself and accepted the hand. It was tiny in Father Hannibal’s. It felt nice. Not often was William touched, excluding the increasingly sparse kisses from his mother and frequent beatings from Sister Rosamond. 

“My name is William,” he told the priest. 

Hannibal’s head tilted and the wind blew his hair into his maroon eyes. To his sweet surprise, the boy brought up a hand to tuck the errant strands behind his ear, and the priest watched him with fascination. He was quite striking, with porcelain skin and mahogany curls and those blue eyes, unspeakably wise in the face of a child. “William,” Hannibal said, and then he smiled wide, revealing slightly crooked teeth that he was all the more beautiful for. He squeezed the little hand in his. “May I call you Will?” he asked. William nodded, and the beginning of his own smile began to stretch his lips. “My Will,” Hannibal repeated, and he ran his hand through William’s hair dotingly. “I will see you at services, Will?” he asked and the boy nodded again, shy but enthused. “Wonderful,” said Hannibal, and when he stood, he wrapped an arm around William and hiked him up to rest against his hip. 

Father Hannibal spun him around once, twice, until William was laughing and wrapping his arms around the kind priest’s neck. Finally, Hannibal set him back to the ground and scruffed another hand through his hair. Then he finished his greetings with the remainder of the parish and bid them all a fond farewell, with a final wink at the fascinating boy standing quiet and alone once again.

William smiled at the priest as he mounted his horse and rode into the distance. 

His Will, Father Hannibal had called him, and so his Will he would be.


	2. Chapter 2

Will, for that was what he went by now, yearned for the next town service, where he would see Father Hannibal again. But as fate would have it, their paths did not wait until Sunday to cross. It was the very next day following their first encounter when they were brought together. 

As had become a twisted sort of tradition, Sister Rosamond called Will up to the front of the classroom to publically humiliate. The misdemeanor this time was failure to keep the hems of his trousers neat. The punishment would be ten raps on the hand with a switch. They had long since graduated from the juvenile sting of her ruler. 

He held out his hand palm down, knuckles already chapped pink from yesterday’s offense, and awaited Sister Rosamond’s retribution with a serenity the nun found sinfully irksome. Like always, she practiced no mercy with her sharp slashes, and like always, Will swallowed his voice. If he was to be denied justice, he would make sure Sister Rosamond was denied satisfaction. He knew it grated her that she could invoke no whimpers from the eight year old martyr. 

She was a sadist; he glowered, and pierced her with his judgmental eyes. The switch smacked against him, and the echo of slapped skin resounded obscenely throughout the schoolhouse. Will accepted it silently. Ten raps had hardly been the worst he had endured from the nun during his three years under her tutelage, and there would be worse to come. Or so he thought. 

It was on the held breath between the fifth and sixth slaps that an authoritative male voice stilled the nun’s hand. 

“Sister Rosamond, what on earth are you doing?” 

Will’s shoulders straightened and his head turned with such swiftness he nearly teetered on his feet. Through a curtain of rebelliously uncombed curls, he spied the man that matched the voice. It was the voice that had found him in his sleep the night before. It was the voice that had claimed him completely while a kind hand patted his head and a warm smile stole the air from his lungs. 

“Father Lecter,” the nun spat by way of salutation. The mass of schoolchildren filling the room fell to a sudden hush. Every eye was fixed on the new arrival, the beautiful priest that stalked like a cat through the maze of desks until he reached the blackboard. 

“Sister,” he said with a slight nod of his blond head. The sugary gaze he had cast on Will the day before was contrastingly fiery now as he looked upon the nun. “I was happening by just now when I saw something quite extraordinary through your classroom window.” The priest did not look at Will, but he felt the boy’s presence beside him like a beacon. 

Sister Rosamond still gripped the switch in her fist like a whip, extended and frozen in the air by her head. With a strained sigh, she slowly lowered it. Hannibal followed the motion and cocked his pale eyebrow, staring at the nun until she disarmed herself completely, placing the switch on the desk. It sat limp and unthreatening. 

“On what grounds were you beating this child, sister?” asked the priest, tall and lithe beneath the folds of his black robes. 

Will watched him intensely, forgetting to breathe until he grew lightheaded. The nun was red-faced and whether it was from anger or shame, he did not care. He was only glad that she was humiliated. And Father Hannibal held the reins of her humiliation. If Will had not loved him already, he loved him then, with a certainty that hammered his heart and flooded his cheeks with warmth. 

“You are new here, Father Lecter,” Sister Rosamond was saying, though Will only heard her voice faintly through the pounding pulse in his ears. “You are unfamiliar with this school’s students. This child, in particular, is a nasty trouble maker, I’m afraid. He requires vigilant discipline.” 

“Ah, I see,” Hannibal responded thoughtfully. “What has he done to earn your discipline today?”

The nun touched a hand to her habit, a nervous tic leftover from younger days when she had twirled golden hair around her finger. “He has neglected his hems, Father,” she said forcefully, as though through sheer willpower she could make the deviance sound less petty. 

Only then did Hannibal allow himself the appraisal of the boy in question. It was the greatest effort of his day, to look at Will Graham and retain his serious expression. There he stood, wiry and pale beneath a mop of dark tendrils, his blue eyes sparkling with defiance. Hannibal crossed his arms and considered the student with a full-body sweep. His hems, Hannibal noted with displeasure, were uneven where the thread had begun to unravel, but more unfortunate was the height of the trouser legs themselves. They fell much too high on the boy’s ankles. More than that, the knees were faded nearly white where they threatened to wear completely through, and the waistbands clung too tightly about the hips. The shirt, as well, was strained at the shoulders where the boy’s frame was beginning to broaden. He passed over Will’s face to glare at the nun. The boy did not need a lashing; he needed new clothes, clothes his family could obviously not afford. 

“He has neglected his hems,” the priest agreed with a solemn nod. “And you, Sister Rosamond, have neglected your good sense, and believe me when I say that God finds that infinitely more offensive.”   
The nun balked and took a step back as Hannibal took one step forward. He towered over her, the thick muscles of his neck straining beneath his white collar. “Should I bend you over my knee and discipline you as you have disciplined this child?”

The other children were thunderstruck, but Will watched the scene with the broad smile he had only known in New Zealand. Father Hannibal was a supernatural force. Will could feel it. Sister Rosamond must have felt it, too, because she was cowering in the priest’s shadow, stammering on a word that never reached fruition. 

“How many raps of the switch had you promised Mr. Graham?” Hannibal demanded. 

“T-t-ten, Father,” she sputtered. 

“Ten,” he repeated. “The next time you lay a hand on him that is how many times I will slap your face. Do you understand me, Sister Rosamond?” 

She was as aghast as Will was delighted. She shuddered beneath his ire until she found voice enough to rattle out her understanding. 

“Forgive me, Sister Rosamond,” Hannibal said, backing away from her and straightening the cuffs of his sleeves. “I am new here and you are unfamiliar with how things should be done. But you know better now, don’t you?” 

“Y-y-yes, Father Lecter,” she said with a bowed head. 

“Excellent,” he said. “I will leave you to it, then.” He turned and placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. “I’m borrowing your pupil,” he announced, and without waiting for her response, which would undoubtedly have been a whimper of approval, he led the boy from the classroom beneath his firmly guiding hand. 

When they had stepped from the classroom, Hannibal fell to one knee, keeping his hand rested on the boy’s shoulder, a reflection of their previous meeting. 

“My Will,” he said, a grin wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “How long has Sister Rosamond been paying you such attention?”

Will answered, “Forever,” but he was not focused on the words; rather, he was focused on the heat seeping through the thin cloth of his shirt from Father Hannibal’s hand, and the maroon eyes squinting concernedly at him through heavy lids. “It’s okay,” he added to appease the priest. “I’m used to it.”

Hannibal shook his head, disbelieving. How anyone could lay a hand to the child before him was beyond his understanding. To mark such unadulterated beauty, to mar such a spirit. His fingers folded over the delicate curve of Will’s shoulder. “Do you know, I wonder, how amazing you are?” he asked to widening blue eyes. 

“I’m nothing amazing, Father,” Will said with a humble shrug. “But it makes me happy to know you think so.”

Hannibal laughed. “I do think so,” he said. “I do.” He scooped the boy up in the crook of his elbow and hoisted him about his hip. “How would you like to join me in town today?” he asked. 

The boy giggled behind his hand that was not wrapped tightly around the priest’s neck. “I would like it very much.”

“So would I, Will,” agreed the man as he began to walk them down the sunlit corridor. “First we will visit the tailor, and then we can have lunch together. How does that sound?”

Will had never been so happy in all his life, even when he had lived in New Zealand. “It sounds wonderful,” he answered with abounding jubilance. 

And it was wonderful. For boy and priest alike.

 

On Sunday, Will Graham arrived with his parents for Father Hannibal Lecter’s first service. His trousers were new, with tidy hems that reached his heels, and his hair was freshly combed, because he had insisted he carry a comb in his pocket and sweep it through his tangles before entering the church. 

It was an old, modest structure, the church, with white paint chipped and peeling beneath the crucifix propped between the long panes of stained glass. Dust had been trudged in by careless parishioners, and Will studied the boot prints made on the hardwood floor before he lifted his chin and looked upon the god of his idolatry. 

Father Hannibal stood beside the first row of pews to better greet his flock as they arrived. The Grahams he treated with especial deference. He shook Mr. Graham’s hand, and then Mrs. Graham’s, and then bent low to run his hands through Will’s hair. “So good to see you,” he said, and the Graham family shuffled to find their seats, the young boy looking over his shoulder more than once to catch a glimpse of the new priest. 

The service itself, once it began, ran smoothly and elegantly, Father Lecter weaving through the Latin as though his lips were made to curve around the holy words. He moved among his kneeling flock, placing the body of Christ on the tongue of each open mouth. Will closed his eyes when it was his turn and felt the priest’s fingers brush against his lips as he pressed the wafer to his eager tongue.   
When Will finally opened his eyes, Father Hannibal had passed, but he was pleased to find that his eyes lingered on Will. 

The boy smiled and savored the wafer. He could almost taste the skin of the fingers that had placed it there. 

For the next few years, attending service would be the most treasured time of Will Graham’s life.


	3. Chapter 3

The thirteenth summer of Will Graham’s life was the summer of the drought, and a summer he would never forget.

The days were hellishly hot, and he spent as much time with his mother inside the little farmhouse as he could, until his father would inevitably drag him into the fields to tend the sheep. His fair skin grew tan save where his cotton shirts shielded the relentless rays of sun. 

Everything smoldered. Even the yellowing blades of grass were shards of dry heat beneath Will’s bare feet when he walked to fetch well water for the washing. And there was no reprieve. Every morning the heat grew impossible, and every night Will sprawled naked on his mattress and prayed for rain. 

It did not come. There was not a drizzle, nor a drop, nor the smallest inkling of moisture in the summer air, and Will would have wept for it had he not been so stingy with his own body’s precious supply of water. 

During Father Hannibal’s services, Will sat with rapt attention and listened to the honey-smooth voice and watched the sweat gather and roll over fine-edged cheekbones. His blonde hair, peppered with the early promise of silver, darkened damply at his temples. His fingers slipped beneath his priest’s collar to un-stick from his skin and usher in a scant rush of fresh air. When Will opened his mouth for Father Hannibal, his knees felt glued to the church’s dusty floorboards. His only relief amongst the inescapable summer was the brief skim of the priest’s fingers as they slid the wafer past his lips. 

It was an insufferable season, the worst drought in over fifty years, some said. Will suffered silently in the fields. He remembered thinking how nothing could ever feel worse than that sun on his back. 

On the last day of the drought, he found out how wrong he had been. 

Three months with no rain, and then the black clouds rolled in. Will had raised his head to the sky, sweaty brow shining in the late afternoon light. Across the land, his father walked the horses to water. It was almost time to head in and wash before supper. Not that anyone was hungry. It was too hot to eat. 

The clouds swirled overhead, and Will watched them, curious. No rain began to fall. But lightning did begin to strike, and thunder clapped so loudly that Will covered his ears and began to run for the farmhouse. 

His mother was standing on the front porch when he reached it, breaths ragged from the run. 

“Where’s your father?” she asked him, a worried line middling her forehead. 

Will threw a gangly arm toward the fields and accepted the pitcher of water she handed him. “He’s with the horse,” he said and drank down a huge gulp of the water. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t even tepid. It was warm as the air he breathed, but he chugged it down just the same and thanked her. She paid him no mind, just kept staring out over the field and the dark sky hanging low. 

It flashed with lightning. Will waited for the bottom to drop with baited breath. When it didn’t, he looked at his mother and the expression painted on her face frightened him.

“What is it, mother?”

He could see her throat working before she answered, her eyes never on him, only on the stretching acres of land. “Everything is so dry,” she said. 

Will didn’t understand. Not until the lightning hit a patch of grass on their land and a burst of fire sparked high. 

They watched mystified for a moment before Will reacted. He flew from the porch and ran into the fields. The wind from the rainless storm picked up, as if blown from God’s own cheeks, and the small fire blossomed into a devilish conflagration. It danced in the sky, and wrapped fiery coils around the flammable grass, and soon the fields were utterly engulfed with flame.

“Father!?” Will yelled. His eyes scanned the horizon in the place he had last seen him. “Father!” 

All he could see was a wall of fire. It spread impossibly fast. Will ventured as close as he could before the black smoke burned his eyes and clogged his throat, and then he had to turn back. 

His mother stood by the well when he returned to her, her hands holding a filled bucket, the ground around her littered with several more. While he had been searching, she had been working. It was no use, and they both knew it. If the fire reached their farmhouse, no buckets would save it. Will coughed up the ash in his throat and waited with his mother, both staring out at the burning fields, hoping to catch a man’s silhouette against the orange glow. It never appeared. 

But when the fire was little more than a mile from their house, Will felt the first drop of rain hit the top of his head. He lifted his eyes and another wet his nose. He turned to his mother. She held out her hand to catch the drops of rain, splattering infrequently at first, and then quickening to a steady, heavy downpour. 

They stood in it until they were soaked to the bone. And then they sat together on the porch and watched as the whirling fire was slowly extinguished. 

The next morning at dawn, they walked to the edge of the field where the fire had finally stopped. All was black beyond it. It had been half a mile away from their house. Will might have considered it a miracle, if it hadn’t been for what else they discovered waiting for them in the ruined fields: his father’s body, melted and mangled and as dead as everything around it.

 

Word spread quickly of the Graham family’s misfortune, and at first light Hannibal saddled his horse and rode for the sheep farm. The damage was immense, and he stiffened at the sight of the hills rolling like grim, black waves. When he found Will in the rose garden behind the house, he knelt at his side and wiped a tear from the boy’s face. 

“My Will,” he said, and the boy closed his eyes, shuddering with muted sobs. Hannibal reached an arm around to comfort him. “Oh, Will, I am sorry this has happened,” he said with his calming voice. "Let us try and be thankful during these difficult times that no one was hurt.”

Will opened his eyes and looked at his priest. News had spread quickly, but not fully. Father Hannibal had not learned the fate of his father. “He is dead,” Will told him, his words fragmented by shaking breaths. “He was caught in the fire and burned alive. Father is dead.”

Hannibal was appalled. He pulled Will fiercely against his chest and held him tight. “Oh, Will,” he whispered in his ear. “My sweet, dear Will. I am so sorry.”

He held him like that, in the bed of roses, until Will’s tears ran dry and he sighed weakly into Hannibal’s shirt. The priest had left his lodgings so hurriedly, he had forgotten his robes. Will twisted his fist against the plain white linen and rubbed his soot-smudged face against Hannibal’s shoulder. Soon they would have to stand up, and Will would have to face his mother inside the house, and they would have to plan the funeral. But for now, he clung to Father Hannibal and savored the hands that rubbed comforting circles over his back.


	4. Chapter 4

His mother was changed after the death of his father, and the next years of Will’s life spiraled slowly in a haze of backbreaking farm work. Seldom did he have time for the schoolhouse, and by the time he turned sixteen, the majority of Will’s studies took place by the candlelight of his own room as he read the books loaned to him by Father Hannibal, almost too exhausted to absorb the words on the page.

Cool glances replaced the kissed cheeks of his youth, and a day Will’s mother had even a single word to say to him was a rare day. The conversations he did not share with his priest, he shared with the sheep. But mostly, Will did not speak at all. He found the conversation of his wooly charges rather uninspired, and he had not the chance to talk overly much with Father Hannibal when both were so busy with their separate works. 

But the priest did try, during that trialed set of years, to help the boy in as many ways as was befitting a priest, though many of his offerings of help were increasingly the opposite. 

On one such occasion, he joined Will in the fields and helped him herd the sheep into their pens. They had laughed together and compared the similarities of their individual flocks. In the end, they had decided Will’s were the more dull-brained, though it had been a narrow win.

Another time, and many times after the first, Hannibal stayed over at the farmhouse and cooked for the Grahams. That occurred on days Will’s mother could not pry herself from her bed. 

Needed or not, Hannibal found himself passing by the sheep farm with building frequency. Sometimes he did not even announce his presence, only rode up on his horse and peered out across the fields to watch Will working, bent over with a hoe or tending the flock. He would wait until he felt sureness in his chest that he was not needed, and then he would leave without ever having said hello. It was less complicated that way.

Because the boy (nay, hardly a boy now, with his work-hardened muscles and wizened eyes) had not only grown physically with the exuberance of puberty, but in feeling, as well. Will’s heart swelled with every passing breath, and his love unfolded painfully for his priest. The more time they spent in each other’s company, the more brazen the boy became with his ardor. It was innocent enough, Hannibal conceded, with lightly touched knees and lingering lips against brows, but he sensed the depth of the boy’s love, and knew it was not right. 

And he was not the only one. 

One day, Sister Rosamond broached the subject with him after one of his services. Her initial fear of the priest after the hostility of their classroom exchange had weakened over the years. There were only so many people in their small Australian village, after all, and one either had to make nice with their enemies, or live in solitude. Hannibal would have preferred the solitude and usually did, but the nun cornered him against his pulpit and charged him with an account he could not ignore. 

“The Graham boy has eyes for you, Father Lecter,” she said.

He looked up from his notes through the soft blond bangs that swept across his forehead. “I beg your pardon?” he asked as though he had not heard her properly. In truth, he had heard her all too well, but he made his head tilt curiously to one side, with feigned invitation for her to continue. 

“Don’t tell me you have not noticed the way he drops to his knees for you,” she said, and the disgust in her eyes brought a red tint to the edge of Hannibal’s vision.

“Do not be crude, Sister Rosamond,” he said. “And he drops to his knees for the Lord, not for me, the same as all our parishioners do.” He sharpened his gaze. “The same as you do.”

But the scold did not hold, and the nun clucked her tongue obnoxiously. “I watched him today, Father,” she continued, despite the fact that he had turned away from her to stack his papers. “When he bends to his knees, it is in praise of you and not the Lord. I can see it in those eyes of his.” She dared grab the sleeve of Hannibal’s robes. “When you placed the body of Christ on his tongue, I had to look away,” she said in a rough whisper. “The look he gave you was sinful. I might have thought it pornographic if it weren’t for the fact that you were so oblivious to the boy’s meaning.”

Hannibal pursed his lips and made to leave the pulpit, glaring at the nun until she stepped out of his way. “There is nothing sinful about Will Graham,” he told her. “He is as pure a soul as any I have known, and I will not allow your gossiping to taint him.”

He had walked by her then, leaving her agog behind him, and headed for the door to bid the worshippers farewell. Will waited for him outside, as he always did after service, and Hannibal gave him a small smile while he shook hands with another. 

Of course, Hannibal was not oblivious to the meaning of Will Graham’s attentions, and each time he placed the wafer on the young man’s tongue, he let his fingers briefly touch soft lips. He knew that Will harbored an inappropriate love for him, but it was not sinful, only misplaced, the confused adoration of a young soul with a great many hardships. And for his part, he loved Will dearly, but it was the love of a priest for a child of God, and nothing more. That is what Hannibal told himself when his breath hitched at night as he disrobed, thinking of deep blue eyes and sweet red lips. There was no strange love brewing between them, for he dwelled on the very thought over his nightly prayers. He was not a man, he reminded himself on his knees before the cross above his bed, he was a priest. And a priest’s grandest love would always be God.

All the same, the nun’s accusation stayed always on the edge of his consciousness, and every time Will let their knees brush or pushed a strand of hair from Hannibal’s eyes, he heard her voice in his head, telling him it was sinful. 

 

If it was sinful, Will Graham did not care. Was it a sin to love the only one on earth that loved him in return? On some days, the only thing that kept Will from lying down to die was his love for Father Hannibal. Dark thoughts, he knew. Dark thoughts far more sinful than his love for the priest, the priest that kept him standing on his feet and juggling to balance a farm on his sixteen year old shoulders. 

Despite Father Hannibal’s help and Will’s stalwart determination, there eventually came a time one spring season, when there were just too many sheep to shear. Will had thrown his hands up in frustration at the dinner table. His mother had stared blankly into her bowl of stew. He told her he had to buy farmhands to help with the work or it would never get done in time to sell. He could no longer do it alone. She nodded, and that was that.

Father Hannibal helped him with the arrangements, and soon a truck drove up the dirt road leading to the farmhouse, full of grown men, gruff and leathery skinned. They would sleep in the barn and help him with the sheep until the end of the season, and then they would leave. 

Will lifted his hand meekly as they passed him on the road in their dirty trousers and bare shoulders. One man looked at him with a lechery that brought a blush to Will’s face. He had a black topping of shortly shorn hair and shoulders slightly slouched from so many hours of grueling labor. An alternate version of himself, perhaps, though at least ten years older. Will let the man pass, and then thought little more of him. He had work to do. The sheep would not shear themselves. 

Though wouldn’t that have been wonderfully convenient?


	5. Chapter 5

The season for shearing came and went, and the price for wool was enough for the Grahams to pay the farmhands and keep afloat another year. Some of the workers chose to stay another season, one of whom was the dark haired man with eyes for Will. 

One evening, when Will was on his horse, riding toward the farmhouse after a long day of tending the field, he came to a stop at the tiny creek that wound through the property. He dismounted and stretched his legs while his animal drank from the crystal blue water. He saw the shadow before he heard the voice, and turned around to find the farmhand sitting with his feet in the water, work boots cast to the side. 

“Hey there,” the man said, tilting the straw hat from his head and offering Will a predatory grin.

Will, unaccustomed to speaking with any of the workers outside of his unavoidable doling out of tasks every morning, returned the smile halfheartedly and made to walk his horse across the stream. He was surprised and mildly alarmed when the man abandoned his recline in the grass to follow. His long legs quickly caught him up to Will’s side, and he kept on grinning until the young man turned his head in question.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Will asked him.

“Sorry,” the farmhand said, and his accent was thickly and assuredly Outback. “You’re just so damn nice to look at.”

Will almost stumbled over a rock in the tall grass but caught himself on his horse’s reins. When he glanced up, it was in time to see the smirk unfolding on the man’s face. “Well, please don’t,” Will told him. 

“I’ll try, since you’re the boss and all,” the man answered lightly. “But I won’t make any promises.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, each step more awkward than the last. Will could still feel the man’s eyes on him, and the insolence infuriated him. “I don’t like to be made a spectacle of,” he told the man with a brutalism he customarily saved for his most unruly sheep.

That earned a cackling laugh. “What’s the point of being so gorgeous if you won’t let anybody look?”

Will stopped in his tracks and whipped around to face his heckler. “I like things quiet at the end of a long day, if you don’t mind,” he said, hoping that would silence his unwanted companion. 

It didn’t. “I can think of a few things to shut us both up for a good long while,” he laughed. Will’s cheeks burned and he laughed even harder. “Say, what’s your name? The workers all call you Graham.”

“You’re one of the workers,” countered Will. “So you can call me Graham, too. “

“I could,” the man said slyly. “But now that we’re so well acquainted and all, I figure we should call each other by our Christian names. I’ll go first to grease the way for you, gorgeous,” he said, and he thrust his hand into the space between them. “I’m Matthew Brown.”

Will turned his nose up at the dirty hand (not that his own were any cleaner after the work of the day) and returned to his walking, this time at a much brisker pace, so as not to confuse his intention of leaving Matthew Brown in the dust. 

He heard the slap of bare feet on grass as the man jogged to keep up. “If you tell me your name, I’ll leave you alone,” he said. 

Desperate to bring the conversation to a close, Will sighed, and without looking at Matthew at all, he answered in as put-out a tone as he could muster. “Will.”

“Will,” Matthew repeated, rolling the name to taste its sound in his mouth. “I think you look more like a William,” he added next. 

“I don’t care what you think, as long as you think it to yourself and leave me be,” Will said, and without further ado, he pulled himself into his horse’s saddle and encouraged the beast to a canter with a whistle. 

He heard Matthew laughing as he left him behind with his boots in his hand. “I’ll be seeing you, William!” he hollered after him. 

Will was glad to be rid of him and eager to get home. He only had so long to bathe and dress before the festivities later that night, and he was determined to look his best. He was attending his first party as a young man, and Father Hannibal was going to be there.

 

Hannibal Lecter was something of a hit among party-goers. He didn’t partake in drinking, obviously, but he never refused a dance, and that night the phonograph was blaring with sweeping, bumping rhythm that had everyone in full swing frivolity. He had traded in his pious black robes for simpler garb, a crisp black shirt and trousers, and though he still wore his white collar, he kept his cross tucked beneath his clothes. He was a fellow reveler for the evening; he didn’t wish to be flashing his priestly status in the faces of all the party attendees. Besides, the heavy cross made a habit of swinging zealously on its chain, and Hannibal’s dancing was less restrained when he kept it hidden safely against his skin. 

It was the night of the annual autumnal party, when the township celebrated the coming of a cooler season, and everyone made it their business to attend, if they were of a certain age. Hannibal swept his eyes over the crowd periodically as the evening progressed. That year, he expected a new face to bless the usual mix. He had not yet spotted him, but when he did, one foot nearly tripped over the other. 

In the doorway, Will Graham stood, the fallen night now velvet-black behind him, and he seemed to nearly glow from the moody lantern light. His hair was swept neatly across his brow in a careful wave, and his eyes were shining blue and bright and magnetic. Hannibal certainly felt his pull, and it was enough to still the jovial spin of his dance. Will, his Will, was dressed as fine as he had seen, and Hannibal wondered where he’d found the extra funds to buy such splendid clothes. A dusky red button down and charcoal pants. He looked so lovely, and Hannibal found his hand reaching out. 

A jolly, heavily ruffled woman grabbed the priest’s hand and led him back into the thick of the dancing where the Charleston was the name of the game. Hannibal tore his eyes from the boy in the doorway, and devoted himself as much to cutting the rug as he did to his nightly prayers. 

Meanwhile, Will Graham, his complexion a vision against the dusky hues of his dress clothes, had dozens of other heads turned in his direction, and before long he had a whole queue lined up and desperate for a dance. He heard the whispers, of course, of how handsome young Mr. Graham had grown, how pretty his eyes, how smart his figure. The rush of praise, such a foreign event for him, brought his shoulders to straightening and his chin to rising with pride. But he did not dance, turning down each and every suitor. 

He dared not dance with anyone, lest he miss his chance with the only one in the room that held his attention, held his entire being. 

He waited, laughing with a drink in hand, casually throwing back a rove of curls springing free from their dollop of wax. He used a nun, innocently enough, to showcase his physical appeal, presenting his neck flirtatiously, biting his lip, as he listened to her tell him something or other about this or that. He wasn’t listening, only waiting, only praying that Father Hannibal would notice him and come to ask him for a dance. 

The night wore on. 

Father Hannibal continued to ignore him. 

When Will had finished his fourth glass of punch and suffered through three separate records, he steadied his nerves, clenched his hands into fists at his side, and approached the priest without hesitation or invitation. Father Hannibal was standing with his back to him, half leaning against the gaudily decorated fireplace mantle, and Will tapped his shoulder, hard. 

“Father?” he asked, and he thought he saw the man’s sleek back stiffen slightly, before he excused himself from the woman he’d been speaking with and turned about to face the owner of the demanding fingers. 

“Will,” he said on an exhale of cider-sweet breath when he registered the sight before him. 

“Hello,” Will replied, blushing deeply. Now that he had his attention, he knew not what to do with it. So he settled with what he wanted most, and his voice came out smooth and, he hoped, alluring. “Would you like to dance, Father?”

His priest’s face was unusually pale in that moment, Will registered, and he imagined it must be from embarrassment that Will, a silly boy of sixteen and of no consequence at all, would have the audacity to ask him, Father Hannibal, the most beautiful creature to walk the earth, for something as intimate and telling as a dance. 

Hannibal’s mouth twitched, an unusual sign indeed, and then he spoke casually and with a friendly, pedestrian smile. “Thank you, Will,” he began, “but I fear I am all danced out for the evening.”

Will nodded curtly. “Of course,” he said, and it was a blessing that his voice did not break. “Excuse me.”

As quickly as he could without drawing attention, Will quit the party and fled from the room in his specially polished shoes. 

Hannibal ran an anxious hand through his hair and sent up a silent prayer before following. He exited the house into the crisp night air the very moment Will was mounting his horse. Their eyes met for a startled fraction of a second, and then Will whistled and his horse set off at a galloping pace. 

“Will!” Hannibal yelled in his wake. He looked around in a frenzy before spotting his own horse and jumping into her saddle. He whispered into her ear and she was off, chasing Will across the open green field. 

The dramatic pursuit did not last long, and when Will ushered his horse to a stop beside a modest lake and overhang of trees, Hannibal did the same. As soon as he had dismounted he took Will by the shoulders. 

“Why did you run from me?” he asked. The young man in his grasp took shallow, rapid breaths that quivered his lips, bitten red from nervous chewing. 

“Why have you ignored me?” Will asked with a voice tinged in anger. “All night, you ignored me. You barely looked at me!” His eyes were filling with tears, and there was nothing to do but allow them to flow. 

Hannibal tightened his grip and felt his own heart race to be so near to such a spirit. “I looked, sweet Will,” he said, his voice falling to a whisper. “That is why I had to ignore you.”

Blue, glistening eyes met piercing maroon, and Will tried to fight away the hands that held him stock-still. “You danced with everyone in the room but me, Father. And I – I – ”

He was humiliated and ashamed. He had paid such special attention to fixing himself up, spending his extra coin on new clothes and gel for his hair. He had wanted to look good. For Hannibal. But it was no use.

“I could not dance with you, Will, don’t you see?” the priest asked, eyes softening. “What would the others say if they saw us? I did not want them to see the way I looked at you. The way I cannot help but look at you.” He released one of Will’s shoulders to brush his knuckles down his dampened cheek. “Do not doubt, not for a moment, that I did not think you the most beautiful creature in the room.”

Will took a step toward him and felt the hand slip from his cheek to lightly touch the back of his neck. Will took another step, waited. And then he closed the distance completely and pressed his mouth upon Father Hannibal’s, hands clutching at his priest’s collar. 

Hannibal made a small sound of surprise, and then relaxed into the touch, deepening the kiss with a passionate return. His hands wrapped around the boy in his arms to hold him firmly in place as their lips pushed roughly together. It was needy and frantic and perfect, and then it was over, because Hannibal was extricating himself from Will’s hands and backing away with quick steps. 

“I’m sorry, Will, we can’t do that,” he said, voice strained and sounding not at all like himself. 

Will had his fingers pressed to his bruised lips, touching their phantom kiss. “Why not?”

Hannibal shook his head, his head that was filled with a million reasons why it was wrong, and yet he could not put voice to any of them, not with Will standing in front of him like that, hair disheveled and eyes wild. “I’m a priest, Will,” he finally said. “I can never have that. Not with you. Or anyone.”

“But,” Will said as a tear streamed over heated skin, “you kissed me back.”

“And I should not have,” Hannibal said abruptly. “And I will not again. Forgive me, Will.”

Will reached for him, but Father Hannibal was already pulling himself into his saddle. 

“Father, please,” he begged.

Hannibal looked at him and shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Will,” he said, and then he turned his horse about and galloped back towards the lights of the party. 

Will sat in the dewed grass and let his new trousers stain. What did it matter?

It was a long time before he had the strength to stand again.


	6. Chapter 6

Hannibal paced the ivory foyer and waited for the bishop to summon him, his black robes swishing around his ankles. 

Swift on the heels of his sin, he had asked for a meeting, and to his surprise, his request had been granted almost instantaneously. As fate would have it, the return letter informed, the bishop wished to have an audience with Father Hannibal Lecter, as well. He was to arrive in Sydney at his convenience. Though, as it was heavily implied in the spidery-lettered correspondence, sooner would be better than later. 

He had taken the very next train.

And now the door was opening, and Hannibal was being beckoned inside. It was the meeting Hannibal had been waiting for since his exile to the farm town eight years ago. But deep in his chest, where his heart should have been bursting with boundless joy, there was an ache, rooted and twisting. The opportunity he had been yearning for tasted bitter. But the bishop was smiling at him and holding out his hand, and so Hannibal took it and tried his best not to think about the boy he had left in the field. 

 

When Will had returned home from the party, he went straight to his bedroom and stripped the clothes from his body. He stood naked by the open window and watched until the dawn approached. Every pull of air into his lungs was a torment, but when the sun crept orange and pink on the horizon, he dressed in his work clothes and went about his business. It was like every other day, he supposed, only now his heart was broken as he toiled away beneath the blazing sun. 

He went through the motions of his work, mindless. At the end of the day, when he brought his horse up to the stream to have a drink, he did not notice the farmhand until he was upon him. 

Matthew Brown’s face was tilted with a smarmy smirk. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said, and then he held up his hands in apology and said, “William, I mean.”

“Will,” corrected Will. 

“I like William,” Matthew said. 

“Fine,” he said, voice dulled and eyes blank. 

Matthew watched him carefully, hungrily, and if Will had been able to see anything through his miserable eyes, he would have found the stare akin to a cat as it hunted a mouse.   
“I hear you like dances,” the farmhand said after a pause. 

Will made a sound that was blessedly passable as a grunt instead of the swallowing of a sob. His response was barely above a whisper. “Not really.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right dance partner yet,” Matthew tried. 

Will kept his eyes on his horse and watched as she took the cool water into her mouth. “Maybe.” His mind reeled with thoughts of the partner he had desired the night before, the partner who had turned him down, kissed him, and then turned him down again. 

“There’s a dance tomorrow night, down the road, nothing fussy or fancy like that soiree you went to last night,” Matthew said. “Come with me.”

A lock of hair fell over Will’s eye, and he pushed it back with a trembling hand. He thought of his priest riding away from him, leaving him alone and crying in the dark. “Sure,” he answered. “Why not?”

 

Matthew Brown pulled up in front of the farmhouse in an old, dirty pickup truck. Will kissed his mother, unresponsive and glazy-eyed as she stared into her coffee, on the cheek, and then he crossed the porch, jumped the two steps, and slid into the passenger seat. He turned to the man sitting behind the wheel and smiled meekly. 

“You look good,” Matthew told him, and then he let the engine rumble and pressed his booted foot to the gas pedal. 

It was nice, being told that his appearance was pleasing, and as their date progressed, Will earned more and more compliments, from both Matthew and the other people at the dance. There must have been a hundred bodies packed into that barn, and Will let himself dance with everyone who asked, but it was never long before Matthew cut back in and proceeded to spin Will through the crowd. He felt a lightness in his heart, and found he could go five whole minutes without thinking of Father Hannibal. 

Sort of.

All in all, the night was better than he had anticipated, and as they headed home in the truck, Will kept his window rolled down and his hand afloat in the wind. Until the truck petered to a stop, and Matthew Brown let it roll into the grass on the side of the empty road. 

“Why are we stopping?” Will asked. It was dark, but he could see Matthew’s sly smile flashing white in the seat beside him. It leaned in, as Matthew scooted closer to Will on the benched seat. 

“Because I don’t want to take you home yet,” he purred. “Do you want me to take you home yet?” 

A rough, warm hand grasped Will’s knee, and his breath caught in his throat. “What – I mean – ” he mumbled as the hand slid insistently up his thigh. 

“Have you ever been kissed by a man, William?” Matthew asked, and he was close enough now that Will could feel his words fluttering the loose curls on his brow. The hand slipped around to smooth across his inner thigh. 

“No,” Will lied, and Matthew tilted his head and pushed Will flush against the passenger door with the fervency of his kiss. 

Will struggled beneath the hot, wet lips sliding over his own. Matthew’s tongue parted his mouth and plunged, deep and seeking, and Will groaned helplessly. The hand on his thigh tightened and moved to cup his groin, where Will was stiffening irrepressibly beneath his jeans. 

He had never been touched there, and it felt good, but Will didn’t want it. Not from Matthew Brown. He pushed away at the grasping hand, and the man leaned back, finally releasing Will from the trappings of his mouth. His lips were shining with spit. 

“Too fast, gorgeous?” he asked breathlessly. 

Will wanted to smack the smirk from his triumphant face. “Yes,” he said instead. 

Matthew shook his head, laughing and sliding across the seat to start the truck again. “Whatever you say,” he told him as they drove back into the road. “Far as I’m concerned, a catch like you is worth waiting for.”


	7. Chapter 7

Hannibal looked around and did not see him. Not in the fields, not on the porch. When he knocked on the screened door, there was no answer. It was when he ventured around the house to the rose garden that he saw Will, sitting amongst the autumn-bare, skeletal vines, eyes closed with his face glowing angelic in the evening light. 

The priest tried to approach discreetly, but Will had trained himself long ago to know when Hannibal was near, and before the man could surprise him, Will opened his eyes. 

The robed man went to his knee beside the boy with no worry for the dirt that would embed in the cloth. “My Will,” he said softly. 

“I didn’t expect to see you, Father” Will answered, wringing his hands in his lap. 

It had been six weeks since the party. Six weeks since the kiss in the field. Six weeks since he had attended service. He was starved for Hannibal Lecter, and his eyes drank him in greedily. 

“I have tried to stay away,” Hannibal said. “I thought it would be best…considering the nature of our last conversation.”

“I don’t remember having much of a conversation, Father,” Will returned.

Every moment in the man’s presence was a challenge, a struggle in his limbs not to reach out his hand and brush the honeyed hair from the priest’s eyes. It was a struggle, and yet Will found himself basking, thrilled to his core to be sharing, once again, the same air as Father Hannibal. Six weeks was too long to be separated. All the words he had practiced in his daydreams, angry words, betrayed words, disintegrated, and Will know, he knew that if Hannibal asked it of him again, he would forgive. On his hands and knees he would forgive the beautiful man sitting beside him in the soiled earth. 

Hannibal was overtly aware of Will, and all things concerning Will. His smooth skin, bare where his time-thinned work shirt draped loosely over his shoulder. His mouth, sucking in his lower lip to bite, and then releasing it, plumped and red. His cheeks, flushed as the roses that used to grow when the season had been warm and their love had not yet been tarnished by Hannibal’s weakness. The weakness that, even now, he could not conquer. Hannibal’s hand moved on its own, reaching to touch the skin that mesmerized him, the blushing strip beneath eyes that threatened the skies with their brilliance. 

“My Will,” came spilling from Hannibal’s lips as his fingers made contact with blessed, sun-kissed flesh. “My Will,” he repeated, and his other hand, rebelling against his shallow resolve not to touch, wrapped around the boy’s neck, sliding past the russet tangle of curls glowing bronze in the setting sun. 

Will shivered beneath his priest’s touch, and leaned into the hand at his neck. “Father Hannibal,” he whispered, and that was all it took. 

Hannibal pulled him close, letting their lips brush lightly before pressing them together in a firmly tender kiss. 

Will sighed hopelessly against him, a tiny sound of relief and bottled pain, and then he was lifting his hands, still filthy from the day’s work, and putting them to Hannibal’s shoulders, caressing up until they framed his face. He deepened the kiss, tightening his fingers into clasping fists as they raked through Hannibal’s mussed hair. 

He did not want to break for breath. Hannibal was kissing him and holding him, and that was all Will needed to sustain his body, to keep his heart from bursting. It seemed to last forever, a moment suspended on dust and dreams, but then it ended. Hannibal pulled away, his face pale and lips pink with their kiss.

“Dear Will,” he said on rasped breath, “the things you do to me.” His fingers remained twisted through Will’s spiraled locks, and the boy nuzzled against his jaw, peppering light kisses there that heated the priest’s blood. 

“Oh, Father,” Will murmured against Hannibal’s neck. “I knew it. I knew you loved me as much as I love you.”

Hannibal held the boy tight against his chest and prayed to God his tears would not escape his eyes. “I do love you, my Will. I do love you,” he said, and when he felt the heavy sighs against his neck where his white collar left his neck exposed, he knew it was time. “I must tell you something.”

Will snuggled against him, fists opening and closing over the black cloth of the priest’s chest. “Tell me again that you love me,” he whispered. 

Hannibal smiled and felt the solitary tear roll down his cheek. “I love you,” he said, and then, “I’m leaving.”

The boy turned up his head and looked at the priest that held him so gently in his arms. He had not heard correctly. “Hmm?”

“I have seen the bishop in Sydney,” Hannibal said, petting the curls at the nape of Will’s neck. “He has invited me to train beneath him there. I leave in the morning.”

“You,” Will gasped and finally moved to break away from Hannibal’s arms, “you can’t.” A storm raged in his chest as he felt his world ending all around him. “You can’t leave me.”

Hannibal could not look into the boy’s eyes. He looked at the bare rose bushes behind him instead and focused on a thorn, long and sharp. “I must leave you. Because I love you,” he said. The boy was shaking his head now, and Hannibal continued the speech he had practiced so hard on the night before as he knelt before the crucifix fixed above his bed. “I am a priest, Will. I cannot offer you the love you deserve. I belong to God, and it is Him I must serve first.”

“Look at me when you say it, Father,” Will said quietly. “Look at me and tell me you love God more than you love me.” A pause, and then he brought his fingers beneath Hannibal’s chin and demanded his eyes. 

The priest met his boy’s gaze, and he knew what he had to do. “I love God more than I love anything or anyone, Will. I am a priest.”

Will shook his head and laughed, a strained and terrible sound, the sound of a dying soul. “You are a liar,” he said. He felt the well of tears hot behind his eyes. “Leave me, then. Go and serve your God, and leave me alone.” He sat back and away from the priest kneeling in the soil beside him and felt the prick of a rose thorn in his back. 

“My sweet Will,” Hannibal began, but then he stopped, his voice frozen in his throat. He knew there was nothing he could say. 

Will watched the priest stand up from the desolate garden, dirt falling off his robes. He stood straight, clean again, and paid his boy a final glance, before turning his back. “Goodbye, Will,” he said, and then he began to walk away. 

“You’ll regret this, Father,” Will told him from his nest of thorns. 

And Hannibal knew he was right.


	8. Chapter 8

Will spent the first hours of his seventeenth birthday lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.

Then he dressed and trudged down the creaky steps of the old farmhouse.

When he entered the kitchen to wish his mother good morning, he found her sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. The steak knife was beside her, just beside her stiffening fingers, curled and mottled above an open wrist. 

He didn’t call out her name, only turned around and went to the phone mounted on the living room wall. 

 

He half expected Father Hannibal to arrive for the funeral, but he didn’t. Matthew Brown was there, though, and they sat together on the chintzy foldout chairs and watched as Will’s mother was lowered into the ground. 

It wasn’t raining. Will thought that maybe it should have been. 

He didn’t cry. In a way, his mother had died the night of the fire, when his father had burned. It was just her shell he buried. It was just his shell that he walked around in now, letting Matthew lead him to his pickup truck and kiss his neck. 

“Can’t run this sheep farm by yourself, gorgeous,” Matthew told him as he turned the key in the ignition. 

“No,” Will agreed. He looked out the dusty window to the grave site, searching one last time for a tall, black-robed figure. 

“I’m going cross country to harvest sugar cane,” the farmhand said. “Come with me. Let me take care of you.”

There was no sign of his priest in the graveyard, and for the first time in days, Will swallowed past a lump in his throat and thought he might cry. 

“What do you say, William?” Matthew asked, tan fingers fanning casually over the steering wheel. 

Will ran a hand over his face. He picked at a loose thread on his grass-stained dress pants, the nicest thing he had to wear to his mother’s funeral. And then he nodded his head. 

Matthew lifted his eyebrows, cutting his eyes from the road to the solemn boy at his side. “Yeah?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Will said. 

The pickup zoomed down the road, and Will kept his eyes forward. He did not look back.

 

Hannibal was walking through the church garden when the messenger approached him with a slight bow. He accepted the envelope and sat down on the stone bench to read it. It was his hour of leisure between morning service and afternoon studies. He squinted at the paper, too white in the bright noon sun. It was a hastily penned letter. He recognized the inky scrawl as Sister Rosamond’s. William Graham’s mother has committed suicide, it read. 

Hannibal Lecter crumpled the note in his hand and shut his eyes, and breathed deep. The scent of blossoming primroses carried on the breeze. 

His request to leave was met with a thinned mouth and stern brow, but the bishop allowed it, and Hannibal was back in the little township three days later. His first stop was the Graham house, but no one was there. He knocked and knocked on the paint-chipped front door until he finally gave up and walked around back. He looked for the huddled shape of a boy amongst the rose garden, but there was nothing but dirt and the beginning of blooms. 

Hannibal had left with the coming of Autumn and now it was the coming of Spring. Will was nowhere to be found. 

 

Sister Rosamond was in the middle of lessons when he barged into her classroom later that day. Her eyes widened, both in fear and in annoyance, and she excused herself from her thankful pupils and walked with him outside of the schoolhouse.

“Thank you for your letter, Sister,” he said, because it was necessary. 

She nodded stiffly. “A pity and a blessing both,” she said.

His ears perked at that, and he felt the beginning of fury tingling beneath his skin. “Why do you call it a blessing?”

“Because that family’s been nothing but tragedy and sin since they came to this town, and I think we’ll all do a deal better with them all gone.”

“All gone?” he asked. “Where is Will?”

She seemed surprised that he didn’t already know, and her answer was on the tail of a bitter laugh. “He left the day of his own mother’s funeral, Father Lecter, your alleged saint did. Ran off with that greasy worker of his.”

Hannibal’s hands fisted the fabric at his sides and he tried to control his anger. “Where, exactly, did he run off to?”

Sister Rosamond shrugged, uncaring and clearly bored already with the turn of discussion. “I don’t know for sure, Father. Gossip among the parishioners Sunday was they went to cut the sugar cane stalks on the West coast. Living together in sin. Can’t say I’m surprised. That boy’s always been filthy, inside and out. I don’t know why you ever - ”

She gasped when Hannibal slammed her against the side of the schoolhouse, her back cracking harshly against the brick wall. 

“Say one more word against Will Graham, and I swear to God it will be the last thing you ever say,” he hissed, his elbow up against her throat. He pressed down until she beat at his arm with her fleshy hands, and then he let her go. Without another look, he stomped away, his steps furious as thunder.

The nun held her hand to her throat and watched him leave. Then she returned to the classroom and called up one of her students. His hair was unkempt from the dusty spring winds, and she meant to teach him a lesson.


	9. Chapter 9

They took the train, and the car they were packed into was steamy hot and overcrowded, and Will fought against waves of nausea, forehead pressed against the window. 

Matthew had not told him how long the trip would be, but they had been travelling now for two days straight, and Will had had little to eat or drink. It didn’t seem to bother Matthew, but Will felt sick to his stomach and his head ached. The one time he mentioned it, he was told he was being dramatic, so he kept quiet the rest of the journey, curled up in his seat, arms wrapped around his middle. 

Finally, they arrived. The air was thick and sticky when they stepped off the train, and Will’s clothes clung instantly to his skin and his curls fell limply over his eyes. Matthew did not complain about the horrific humidity, so Will kept silent, as well, and let himself be led to the cheap motel Matthew had booked in advance. 

It was so hot, and Will felt so sick, that as soon as he was through the front door, he collapsed on the bed. He heard Matthew laughing, and then he felt his weight falling beside him on the mattress. When he felt the hand on his back, he groaned in protest. 

“It’s too hot,” Will said. 

“You better get used to it,” Matthew said, slipping his hand beneath Will’s shirt and pushing it up over his damp skin. “It’s like this all the time here.”

Will did not answer, only groaned his misery again. He felt a sharp sting against his bared back where Matthew slapped him. 

“No whining, gorgeous,” he scolded. “If you’re hot, you better take off these clothes.”

Will felt his body tense. He’d known it was an inevitability when he’d agreed to join Matthew, but somehow he had let himself forget. And now the reality was before him, or behind him, rather, as Matthew tugged the waistband of Will’s pants down his hips and pressed his weight on top of him. 

He could do nothing but close his eyes, grip the bed sheets, and try not to cry aloud as he felt Matthew’s hardness rubbing against his backside. He had agreed to this, hadn’t he? And in the end, what did it matter what was done to his body? He was only a shell, after all, his soul long dead, curled in the soil of the rose garden. 

“It’s like fucking a corpse,” Matthew complained after he had pushed himself in. “Move, gorgeous,” he demanded. 

Will moved, but he did not make a sound and he never once opened his eyes. He suffered silently, as he always had, and wished with all his broken heart that it was Hannibal behind him. But it would never be Hannibal. 

When Matthew finished, he rolled off and got dressed. “We’re going to have to work on that,” he said.

 

They stayed at the motel around a week, “working on that,” until Matthew announced one day that his job cutting down sugar cane was secured. Will would stay in the motel, paid through for the next six months, while Matthew went to work in the fields. 

“What will I do?” Will had asked, and Matthew had sighed, irritated. 

“You’ll wait here for me, William,” he said, as though he had explained it a hundred times. He had hardly explained it at all. “I’ll visit when I can.”

“But what will I do?” Will asked again as Matthew headed for the door with his suitcase. “What am I supposed to do here alone for six months?”

“Wait for me, gorgeous,” was all Matthew said. He kissed him hard on the mouth, and then he was gone.

Will shut the door and went to sit on the bed. Sometimes he thought he spent his whole life waiting. He was used to it. 

 

One month later, Will was sick. 

He was awfully, terribly sick. And he was alone in the little motel room, too weak to open the windows or click on his bedside lamp. He had a fever and could barely keep down the sips of water he took, when he was even able to lift his head from the pillow enough to try. 

One time, in a fit of desperation, he had tried to telephone Matthew at the sugar cane fields, but he had been working, and he never returned the message Will left for him. He thought he was dying.

On the fifth day of his illness, he fell to delirium. Through his fevered haze, he thought he saw Father Hannibal approaching him on the sickbed, his deathbed. 

“My Will,” the specter whispered as he stroked Will’s head reverently. 

“Hannibal,” Will croaked, his throat dry. His imaginary priest put a cool cloth to his forehead and held cold water to his lips to drink. 

When Will doubled over, and heaved it onto the floor, gentle hands slipped around him and lifted him into the bath. He was washed and dried, and when he felt himself lowered back onto the bed, it was against fresh, sweet smelling sheets. 

Will’s mind blackened after that, to the echo of Hannibal’s voice at his ear, telling him to rest.

 

The room was bright when his eyes cracked open. Will moaned. His whole body ached. He was thirsty and hungry and weak. 

But he was alive. 

Why was he alive?

“You’re awake,” said a voice in the bathroom doorway, and Will nearly snapped his neck to look. 

There he stood, impossibly real, not a specter at all, but flesh and bone and honey-blond hair. 

“Father,” Will said. His voice was too tired to be more than a soft hush, but he was heard all the same, and Hannibal came to sit beside him on the bed. He held Will’s hand in his, a sad smile on his face.

“Will,” he said. 

“What are you – how did you find me?” Will asked. He wondered if this wasn’t part of a fever dream, or if he had died, and this was heaven. Wouldn’t Hannibal be there, if it was heaven? He squeezed the hand holding his as hard as he could manage, which was not hard at all. 

“I heard about your mother,” Hannibal said, his voice low and careful. “And then I learned you had traveled West. I had to see you, to make sure you were okay,” he said. “It took me a long time to track you down. I’m sorry.”

“Matthew left, and I got sick,” Will said pathetically. 

“It’s a miracle I showed up when I did, Will,” Hannibal said, and Will instantly released his hand. 

“Don’t talk to me about miracles,” he told the priest. “Don’t tell me God sent you here to save my life.”

“Will,” Hannibal began, but the boy cut him off, his newly sprung anger bringing a borrowed strength to his muscles. 

He pushed himself up in the bed and thought he might faint, but he steadied his head against the wall. “Why are you even here?” he asked. “Why did you come here, Hannibal?”

“I wished to see you, to make sure you were okay,” Hannibal said. But even as he said it, he knew it would not be good enough. Not for the ghostly pale boy in the bed, trembling with righteous anger.

“How dare you,” Will said, pushing away the hands that reached for him again. “How dare you abandon me and then say you were worried about me!”

“Please, Will,” Hannibal tried, but it was no use. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Will yelled. “Why won’t you leave me alone? You made your choice. I told you you’d regret it. But it’s not my problem, Father. I don’t want your miracles or your God or your prayers. I only want you to leave!”

Hannibal stood from the bed. “Will, I never meant for any of this to happen,” he said. 

“And yet here we are,” Will replied coolly. “Now get the hell out of my room.”


	10. Chapter 10

Hannibal listened to Will and actually left, which only made Will angrier. As soon as he could muster the strength, he stood from the bed to pace the room. He did that for a long time, walking back and forth over the stained, rough carpet, until his ire was replaced with an unbearable hunger. 

He dressed and ventured out into the sunlight for the first time in a long time, spent some of the money Matthew had left him to buy groceries, then sat by the open window of the motel room and ate until his belly no longer screamed in distress.

When he went to the bathroom to fill the tub for a bath, he spotted his reflection in the mirror. It was blurry and tarnished, but he saw himself clearly. And he didn’t like it. 

He skipped the bath and filled his suitcase instead, packing it full with of his clothes and the few trinkets he had brought with him from home. It wasn’t much, and in only a handful of minutes, Will was heading out the door with no intention to return. 

 

“I’ll go wherever you’re going,” Will told the man at the docks, and after he had passed him a fifty dollar bill, the man welcomed him aboard his speedboat and they zipped out onto the open ocean.   
Where they were going, the man informed him, was a tiny cluster of islands. He worked on a resort there. Quite secluded, he told Will, and quite nice. 

It sounded nice to Will, and he asked the man if there was a vacancy at the resort. The man grinned and told him there was. A whole house on a stretch of island, very secluded and peaceful, he said. Will returned his smile and told the man he’d like to stay there, very much, for as long as his money would cover it. 

They shook hands, and traveled the rest of the way in amiable silence. In about an hour, they were there, and Will was being led into the house by the beach, right on the water. It was beautiful.   
“It’s just what I want,” Will said, and after he had paid the man, he was left alone on his own, private bit of island. 

 

He spent his days lying on the sand and thinking. At the grocer's down the road, he’d filled a basket with fruit, and he liked to wade out, naked, into the water and eat it. The juices dripped sticky and sweet down his chin and reminded him of New Zealand. 

Will decided one day, as he sucked on the pulp of an orange, that he would never return to the sad, rundown motel room. Would Matthew even notice his absence when he returned from the fields? If he returned from the fields? The salt water rolled gently against Will’s stomach, and he plunged his head beneath the waves. Then he sprang from the water, hair flipping to drip down his shoulders, and he laughed. The sound was strange in his ears. To laugh, to smile, to feel anything that wasn’t misery or disgust or sadness, it felt like a gift, and Will cherished it. He laughed again, hearty and unrestrained. No one was there to hear him or judge him or tell him he was filthy. 

He was completely alone. Or he thought he was, until he turned his soaked head towards the beach, towards his seaside house, and saw something moving. Someone walking through the sand. Will squinted; the sun was in his eyes, and he could not see. 

It must be the owner, he thought, come to relay a message or let him know his wife had invited him to have pie with them later or something. It would not be unusual; he had dropped by like that occasionally during the few days Will had been staying on the beach. Thinking that must be who it was (for who else could it possibly be?), Will began to make his way through the water until his feet sank into the wet sand. He grabbed the shorts he’d left shore-side and slipped them hurriedly on so as not to expose himself to his temporarily landlord 

Will called out to the man and waved. 

When the approaching figure lifted its hand to wave back, Will suddenly knew. 

He knew that walk, that languid, graceful stalk, and he knew the way that hand turned in the air to greet him, to bless him, to touch his cheek. He knew that silhouette, lean and tall. He knew him. He loved him. 

“HANNIBAL!” he yelled, and then he was kicking up sand and running. 

It was him. It was Hannibal, and he was there, and Will threw himself into the arms that were held open for him, and they both fell back onto the sand. 

“Will,” Hannibal sighed, smiling. His boy sat atop him, leaning low, his hair dripping all over Hannibal’s face and chest. He was not wearing his priest’s robes. He was not wearing the white collar. Hannibal’s attire was simple and white and crisp and unbuttoned just enough to reveal the hairs on his chest. Will set his fingers there, and then he kissed him. 

The priest returned it, broad hands smoothing down his boy’s back until they were pressed flush against one another. He flipped him over, and Will laughed, gazing up at the man above him with wonder. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, the same words he’d used in the motel room, but completely different now, wrapped in warmth and adoration and surprise. 

Hannibal stroked his thumb down the side of Will’s face, pink from his days in the sunshine. “When I left your room, I went to the manager and rented the one next door to you,” he answered. “You left, and I followed. I would have been here sooner, but I had to wait for the next boat.”

“But why, Hannibal?” Will asked, fondly stroking the priest’s hair from his eyes. “Why do you keep coming back to me?”

Hannibal brought his face down close to Will’s, pressed their foreheads together, and breathed him in. “Because you were right,” he whispered. “I regret every moment of my life not spent with you.” His eyes locked onto Will’s, so big and impossibly blue. “And if it is a sin to love you this way, so be it.”

Will’s lips found the stubble at Hannibal’s jaw, and he traced kisses down his neck and then back up. “You’re a priest,” the boy told him. “Your love for your God is greater than your love for me. That’s what you said.”

“And yet the only one I want to fall to my knees and pay worship to is you,” Hannibal replied. 

And then he kissed him. 

 

Eventually, they left the beach and went inside the house. Will turned the handle of the shower, and then faced the man beside him. His fingers worked at the buttons until the shirt fell open over Hannibal’s broad chest, and Will slipped his hands over his shoulders and pushed the cloth away until it fell, forgotten, to the floor. 

Hannibal’s hands touched lightly against Will’s hips and flirted with the edge of his shorts. Will looked up at him beneath heavy lids. 

“Undress me,” he said, and even though his hands nearly shook with nervous jitters, he placed them over Hannibal’s, and guided them until he was standing completely bare. Then he brought his hands to Hannibal’s trousers and loosened the clasp there. His fingers fumbled. “I’m so nervous,” he said with a laugh, and the priest finished with his own clasp, pushing down his pants and underclothes until they huddled around his ankles. He stepped free and kicked them away. 

Hannibal wasn’t nervous, he was at prayer, and after he kissed Will’s lips and pressed their bodies together, he bent to his knees and worshipped.


	11. The Happy Ending

Matthew Brown threw the lamp across the motel room. He was blind with anger, and when he heard the door open behind him, he whipped around, eyes blazing. 

“Where have you been?” he hissed at Will, who had entered the room slowly and was shutting the door behind him. “I’ve been back for hours, and the manager told me you haven’t been here for weeks. Weeks, William!” He picked the pillow up from the bed and threw it at Will, because there was nothing else to throw. 

Will caught the feathery missile against his stomach, and looked demurely up at Matthew. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” he said softly, taking a few steps forward until they were standing toe to toe. Matthew fumed.

“Are you going to tell me where you were?” he asked. When Will shook his head, Matthew backhanded him so hard it turned Will’s head to the side. “Where the FUCK were you, while I was out in the fields working my fingers to the bone, trying to make money for you?”

Will brought his head back straight and licked at the blood that trickled from his busted lip. Then he smiled and said, “I was at fucking church.”

Matthew frowned and creased his brow. It was all he had time to do before the silent feet crept up behind him. Hands grabbed his head and twisted, and just like that, Matthew Brown’s body dropped to the floor. 

Hannibal wiped his hands off on his pants to rid the farmhand’s lingering grease from his palms. Then he turned his attention to the beautiful boy smiling at him. He stepped over the body and brought up his thumb to wipe the blood from Will’s chin. 

“Thank you,” Will said, leaning in to kiss his priest. 

Hannibal hummed happily against his boy, pulling their bodies together and nuzzling into his thick curls. “You’re welcome, Will, my Will,” he said. “Tell me, who would you like for us to visit next?”

Will grinned and kissed Hannibal again, before leaning away with a gleeful smirk. “I think I’d like to visit Sister Rosamond next,” he said. 

The priest laughed and pushed the hair from Will’s eyes. 

They would go and see about the nun. 

And after that, God only knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MWAHAHAHA. Please pardon my total deviation from the actual plot of The Thorn Birds, but I was like, wait a second, Will's not going to get pregnant and Hannibal's not going to NOT be Hannibal. So I spun my own ending. Thank you for reading, everyone! This one was short and sweet, and I may come back with more one-shot adventures for Will and his priest, but for now, this is the (effed up) conclusion. <3 <3 Thank you for all the love, and I send it back to you tenfold. xoxox


End file.
